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WP5 in MANTIS-project focuses to study on implementing an efficient intelligent human machine interaction to deal with the intelligent optimization of the production processes through the monitoring and management of its components. The overall objectives of WP5 is to develop HMI capable to contribute to:

Enhanced monitoring of shop-floor conditions

Automatic self-adaptation of control strategies

User-friendly, ergonomic and intuitive interaction between workers and machines

Work in WP5 started with the identification of human machine interaction scenarios from each eleven use-cases. When defining requirements for HMI from different use-case point of views, collaborative and proactive aspects were highlighted. Even though the use-cases are very different, common elements and functionalities from the requirements for HMI were identified. Figure 1 presents the overall approach towards WP5 when designing and developing HMI prototype.

Overall approach towards WP5

At the moment work in WP5 focuses on researching different platform solutions that would serve the HMI needs specified in use-cases. The objective is to develop a platform solution that will serve the common HMI needs identified from use-cases. Initial discussions among the WP5 participants relates to building a Web-based maintenance information portal that will act as a prototype HMI, which could be tested in selected use-cases. WP5 partners have discussed the potential approaches over the last period and the implementation plan have just been agreed on. Figure 2 is an example view what maintenance information portal could look like consisting of user specific content elements.

Example view of maintenance information portal

We need to have in mind that the information portal should behave as a support for the users not as their replacement. Maintenance information portal could be:

a single gateway to a company’s information and knowledge base

a framework for integrating information, people and processes across organizational boundaries

a secure unified access point

designed to aggregate and personalize information

Discussions about importance of three concepts in HMI-development has also been active. These concepts are collaborative, proactive and context-aware functionalities. Collaborative functions in HMI could be the possibility to communicate through the portal, share information and UI-views with different actors involved in certain maintenance tasks. These actors can be within the organization or external service providers. Proactive functions can be automated, model based calculations that predicts maintenance needs early enough that required maintenance actions can be carried out to prevent unplanned down time. Context-aware functions could for instance alter user defined UI-views in certain scenarios such as emergency situations or changes in the state of the production process. UI-view could also change depending on physical location of the portable mobile device connected to MANTIS-platform.

Held in Bilbao from 28th May to 1st June, the 29th edition of the Machine-Tool Biennial (BIEMH) gathered a total of 40,000 people, representing a clear success and a gradual industrial recovery indicator. Predictive maintenance has constituted a trending topic (as Industry 4.0 pillar) within the fair, specifically threated by MIC (Maintenance Innovation Conference), playing several MANTIS partners (FAGOR Arrasate, IK4-Ikerlan, IK4-Tekniker) a key role during the BIEMH. Specifically related to maintenance, FAGOR Arrasate presented the wide range of applications and services derived from the advanced connectivity their products bring in (e.g. check of operating functions and potential machine utilization improvements).

FAGOR ARRASATE connected manufacturing lines

Moreover, DANOBAT Group (belonging to MONDRAGON Corporation) presented Dynamics Active Stabilizer, a device capable of actively increasing the dynamic rigidity of the machine tool, reducing the risk of chatter during the machining process and thus increasing the cutting capacity by up to 300%. This represents a clear example of how process data real-time processing (and analysing) can have a significant impact on productivity and production costs. DAS (which received the Quality Innovation of the Year award, organized by the Finish Quality Association) improves 100% capacity through the complete workpiece volume, increases productivity up to 300%, improves workpiece surface quality, extends the tool life and operates in real-time.

It was eventually announced that next BIEMH will take place on May 28-June 1, 2018 (Monday to Friday), which means it will be one day shorter than this year’s event.

DANOBAT GROUP DAS system

On the whole, ICT enabled predictive maintenance states one of the most promising revenue streams machine tool builders have (hence its strong presence within this international fair). However, there are still several technological and non-technological challenges to be faced, being most of them tackled by MANTIS.

Healthcare Imaging Systems of Royal Philips N.V. are essential for the diagnosis and treatment of patients in hospitals and private clinics. Due to the large costs involved it is not economically feasible to implement backup systems. Therefore system uptime has to be maximized, planned downtime has to be minimized and unplanned shutdown has to be prevented. To cope with the exploding cost of healthcare, the cost of ownership has to be reduced, which also implies that maintenance budgets are under pressure. In response Philips Healthcare has developed maintenance services for hospitals based on remote monitoring of their systems.

Health equipment used during patient treatment

The main challenge is to retrieve, store and analyse large amounts of data from globally distributed systems such that predictive maintenance can be offered instead of maintenance at fixed time intervals. Furthermore an alerting system is necessary when the online big data analysis detects a threat of shutdown.

Due to the large purchase cost and the cost of housing unplanned shutdown has a large impact on patients who do not get the care and on the hospital. The Healthcare Imaging Systems of Royal Philips N.V. will use the MANTIS Architecture for equipment asset optimization, thereby aiming to move from a reactive to proactive and predictive maintenance.

Main challenge: getting from large amounts of data to accurate and precise failure detection and prediction.

The objective is to accurately predict upcoming failures by mining large amounts of data from heterogeneous systems distributed globally, such that maintenance can be timely scheduled or in urgent cases the responsible person can be alerted.

Graphic depiction of Health equipment maintenance use case

Every Healthcare Imaging Systems of Royal Philips N.V. contains many sensors and generates large log files daily. Since these systems are heterogeneous by nature the first challenge to address is to optimize logging such that data mining success can be optimized (anamnesis). The next challenge is to make all data available worldwide in the cloud. Once the data is centrally available it has to be translated to behavioral models and consolidated in a limited set of relevant parameters (translation). This translation requires significant computing power and storage space (infrastructure). Next, the obtained parameters have to be analysed with respect to the maintenance challenges (analytics) and the results have to be visualized for end-users (visualization).

A three-day MANTIS project general assembly took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia from 23rd to 25th of May 2016. The meeting was organized by Jožef Stefan Institute and hosted 73 participants.

During the event there were eight technical Workshops (one for each project work package), the main General Assembly meeting, the Executive Board meeting, and a Keynote talk by the member of External Advisory Board. Each workshop discussed its role to reach the project goals of proactive maintenance by establishing the overall Service platform architecture.

Working part

The first day started with the project overview by the Coordinator, followed by the WP4 and WP5 workshops in parallel. The second day consisted of WP1, WP2, WP3, WP6, and WP8 workshops. Special attention was given to the Keynote talk by Jerker Delsing, who presented his view on proactive maintenance. The second day ended with the General Assembly meeting. On the third day WP2, WP7 and WP8 took place, and the day ended with the Executive Board meeting.

Each workshop discussed some open issues and set future actions and deadlines in order to reach its goals as well as the overall goals of the project.

Keynote talk in the Main lecture room

Social part

Social part of the event consisted of a short Ljubljana tour at the end of the second day, where we experienced the drive with the new Ljubljana’s Electric train Urban (we are grateful to the City of Ljubljana for giving us the opportunity to test the train), and a dinner at the Ljubljana Castle with the local culinary.

The paper “Optimising Maintenance: What are the expectations for Cyber Physical Systems” has been presented at the 3rd International Workshop on Emerging Ideas and Trends in Engineering of Cyber-Physical Systems, EITEC’16. This workshop was held at the CPS Week 2016 in Vienna, Austria. The paper is the result of a collaboration between four MANTIS partners: Erkki Jantunen (VTT), Urko Zurutuza (MGEP), Luis Lino Ferreira (ISEP) and Pal Varga (BME). You can download the paper in the Dissemination section of the web.

Abstract—The need for maintenance is based on the wear of components of machinery. If this need can be defined reliably beforehand so that no unpredicted failures take place then the maintenance actions can be carried out economically with minimum disturbance to production. There are two basic challenges in solving the above. First understanding the development of wear and failures, and second managing the measurement and diagnosis of such parameters that can reveal the development of wear. In principle the development of wear and failures can be predicted through monitoring time, load or wear as such. Monitoring time is not very efficient, as there are only limited numbers of components that suffer from aging which as such is result of chemical wear i.e. changes in the material. In most cases the loading of components influences their wear. In principle the loading can be stable or varying in nature. Of these two cases the varying load case is much more challenging than the stable one. The monitoring of wear can be done either directly e.g. optical methods or indirectly e.g. vibration. Monitoring actual wear is naturally the most reliable approach, but it often means that additional investments are needed. The paper discusses the above issues and what are the requirements that follow from these for optimising maintenance based of the use of Cyber Physical Systems.

The first MANTIS project meeting tool place in San Sebastian the 3rd of June 2015. The meeting was organized by the coordinator partner, Mondragon University, and 64 participants took place.

First picture of the MANTIS project kick-off meeting attendees

We discussed the organizational structures, shared information on project management, the tools that will be used for managing all aspects of the project, as well as constitution of the decision bodies (General Assembly, Executive Board and External Advisory Board).

MANTIS kick-off meeting agenda

The second day the meeting was split in 4 different Working groups, which corresponded to Requirements gathering, Architecture development, Sensors and Intelligent systems to be used in the MANTIS proactive maintenance platform.

This project has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 662189. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Spain, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Austria, United Kingdom, Hungary, Slovenia, Germany.